Some pre-Christmas decorating with Farrow & Ball

It may not be that obvious to regular readers of the blog, but I love houses, architecture and interior design. In general, I’m great (and modest about it 😉 ) with the architectural bits- the technical stuff about joists and beams, heating, cooling and so forth; As well as the practical stuff, like flow and space efficiency.

However, I totally loose confidence when it comes to creating a colour scheme. I end up sticking to a bland palette of neutrals or being guided by a carpet or piece of furniture that was never really my choice.

Last week I had the utter pleasure of being introduced to the Farrow and Ball paint range by International colour consultant: Joa Studholme. In an hour Joa gave me and some fellow mums a whiz through interior design tricks and tips using paints and wall paper.

Some I was aware of, but some principles definitely gave me a new perspective on interior design.

The basic three principles that Joa emphasised were about architecture, light and taste.

When starting to decorate consider the architecture of the house and the room. Look at the architectural details like coving, picture rails, skirting. Do you want to highlight those and how much emphasis do you want to place on them?

Always consider the light the room gets and how it changes during the day and through the seasons. Joa suggested that it’s worth working with this and if you have a naturally dark room with poor light, it may be worth accentuating this with a dark colour scheme to create a feeling of cosiness.

Most importantly, according to Joa, don’t be a slave the period of your home and market trends. Decorate to your taste and work the colours accordingly.

Now comes the challenge: Applying these principles, and more, to our playroom.

We completed the playroom extension 4 years ago. It’s a 4m x 4m rear extention linked from the original kitchen of the house. It was my main driver through the long renovation process and it was the best part of the project costing a mere £16,000. I used a super insulated timber frame constructed on site, high ceiling, lots of windows and light. It’s a room that works so well, opening its huge doors onto the garden in the summer.

However, after 4 years the timbers in the structure have settled. This has left us with some settling crack that need to be filled and Hugo has been practising a LOT of headstands and handstands by the walls. The walls need filling and repaint.

The window surrounding timbers were never really finished- they are bare. It needs some sort of treatment.

Here is what the playroom looks like today

To find out that Farrow and Ball have some bright colours alongside their shades of whites was a very pleasant surprise. I knew I wanted light walls, but I also feel the room needs some colour ejected into it.

A photo posted by Monika (@mumonthebrink) on Nov 11, 2014 at 5:17am PST

I love the colours!

However I’m having a real wobble about a number of other things.

Do I keep the room layout?

Which “white” do I go with?

Do we keep the current sofa, which is practical for cleaning and kids jumping on, but not the most comfortable, except for watching telly?

What do I do with the floor? (A whole saga because the 4 year old floor with extra layers of Dulux Diamond glaze has been wearing off for the past 2 years. So diamond glaze is not diamond hard at all.)

YIKES! …and I need to decide as soon as possible, so we don’t have a half decorated room at Christmas.

HELP! What would you advise? What’s worked for you in decorating multifunctional family spaces?